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I am Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I am also the editor of the academic journal The Latin Americanist.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

I generally like Hillary Clinton's speech yesterday on Latin America. It is refreshingly free of references to Hugo Chávez, Iran, or other typical boogeymen. Instead, it focused on inequality, tax reform, immigration reform, crime, and education. In other words, real problems. Plenty of people are complaining about the Obama administration's approach to Latin America, but I would argue that it is useful just to continue the shift away from a security-obsessive message to one that actually addresses Latin American concerns (which, incidentally, are not about Hugo Chávez).